I´ve had some busy weeks and weekends in between! May is always a month packed full with matches. The last four weeks I´ve shot three big matches – the two IPSC LIII matches Munich Open and Infinity Euro Open and the European Steelchallenge in the Netherlands.
But one after the other – after the successful start into the season with the win of the Ghost Masters LIII, I was very motivated for the next challenge. The Munich Open is always a match with a lot of very challenging stages and so was this one also. I had a very good match with a lot of nearly perfect runs with good times and solid hits and was able to win seven of the 20 stages. But unfortunately, I also had three or four totally screwed ones. This time, that were one or two screwed too much – Gerald from Austria shot clean and beat my by 2,35%. How far away we both have been can be seen by the distance to the third place – third had 84,97%. That was a tough challenge…as always, when we two are shooting the same match. Next time, it will be the Europeans….
Munich Open 2016 Results Munich Open 2016 Stageresults
Only two weeks later, I travelled to the Netherlands to shoot the European Steelchallenge. One of my favorite matches in the year. Unfortunately, I have no time and opportunity to practice for that kind of match. Because of that, I decided to start also in Division Standard Pistol with my Standard Revolver to use this as a practice run. So I started my match on Sunday morning in Standard Pistol. It worked quite nice and I finsihed with 86.xx. Could have been a bit better but I had to take a mike on five to go which cost me three seconds penalty. But who cares, I was focused on Standard and Open Revolver. After Standard Pistol, I shot a secod run with my 929, now as Standard Revolver. It went a bit better as the first one but not as good as last year. 85.xx was a second slower than 2015. But I was quite happy with that. Finally I started with the 627 Open Revo – this run was very nice and I improved my last years time by 3 seconds to 78.xx
When it came to the price giving ceremony, I was VERY surprised when they called my name for Standard Pistol podium – 3rd place with the wheelgun! Awesome! But it even went better – I won also both Revolver divisions. And finally – even Standard Team was a victory for the team “Steel Monkeys” with Werner and Frants! Two Revolvers, three starts – four medals! What a blast!
2016_European_Steel_Challenge_results 2016_European_Steel_Challenge_stageresults
Motivated by that result, I shot the third match in this row – the Infinity Open. Always one of the highlights in my calendar. As last year, I shot the match together with the Team Infinity guys – that was just perfect – besides having lots of fun together by kidding each other, these guys are all shooting a very fast gun which rocked me to do it just the same. The stage this year have been filled with challenges. Nearly everywhere, there was a bobbing or swinging target Sometimes plates, sometimes paper targets. What I liked most, was the fact, that also at this match (like the Munich Open some weeks before), the long courses were designed that you had to have fast feets – the last years, there was a trend towards more static, long distance and precision shooting, in between, it seems, that “running and gunning” and the need for a physical fitness is coming back again. I like! In the end, I made it again and finished by a comfortable lead of 10% 😀
2016_Infinity_Open_results 2016_Infinity_Open_stageresults
Now it´s time for a break of Revolver shooting – IPSC Rifle nationals are the next match on my schedule! Stay tuned!